Organizational Psychology

The profile of the top and middle managers.

Anna Katarzyna Baczynska and Tomasz Rowinski

Journal Name:

Frontiers in Psychology

ISSN:

1664-1078

Article type:

Data Report Article

First received on:

02 Jul 2015

Frontiers website link:

www.frontiersin.org

The profile of the top and middle managers

Anna Baczynska*, Management Department, Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland.
Tomasz Rowinski, Institute of Psychology, Personality Department, Cardinal Stefan
Wyszynski University, Warsaw, Poland.
Correspondence address:
Dr. Anna Baczynska
Kozminski University
57/59 Jagielloska St., 03-301 Warsaw, POLAND
abaczynska@kozminski.edu.pl

This study was carried out with respect for the principles of ethics. All subjects gave written
informed consent in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Introduction
Most activities relating to human resource management in organizations are connected with
competency models (Amstrong, 2000, Oleksyn, 2010). They have not always lived up to
expectations, and this is the reason for the large number of competencies that need to be
measured for managerial positions (Boyatzis, 2009). Along with the development of the
competency approach, organizations have departed from examining what is broadly defined
as disposition (Stodgill, 1948). However, in recent years the trait approach has been
increasingly used in human resource management for selecting, developing and planning the
career paths of managers. This is linked to two factors:
Firstly, owing to the development of psychological methods and in-depth analyses in the field
of individual differences, renewed attention has been paid to personality and cognitive ability.
In studies of managerial traits, besides competencies, those features which distinguish them
from other employees have started to be examined (House, Aditya, 1997). Secondly, studying
traits is connected with examining the performance of managers. Sternberg (2007) has shown
that a higher level of general mental ability and practical intelligence is a characteristic trait of
efficient, top level managers. Moreover, it is now fairly common to measure emotional
intelligence as an indicator of future managerial success (Goleman, 1998; McKee, 2005).
Barrick and Mount (1991) claim that other features are also important, i.e. personality factors,
and in particular, conscientiousness. The results of meta-analysis performed by Bono, Judge
(2004), Judge, et al (2004), Judge et al. (2002), Lord, et al (1986) confirm that mental and
personality traits can play a significant role in carrying out managerial functions in
organizations. The table below presents studies which take into account one or both variable
areas, i.e. cognitive ability and personality.

Table 1 Variables measured in job performance

Author

Analytical Emotional Personality Others

mental
intelligence
ability

Brand (1996); Brody, 2000; Jensen, 1998;

Schmidt& Hunter, 1998; Ree & Earles, 1993;
Riggio, et al, 2013)

Judge, Colbert, Ilies, 2004; Lord, et al

(1986); Fiedler, 2002; Sternberg, 2007

Sternberg et al., 2000;. Sternberg and

Hedlund, 2002; Stodgill, 1948

Goleman, 1998; Palmer et al., 2001; George,

2000;. Barling et al., 2000; Watkin, 2000;
Miller, 1999; Caruso, Wolfe, 2001; Boyatzis
2011; Satija and Khan, 2013; Gardner, L.,
Stough, C.(2002); Goleman, D.et al (2002).

Barrick, Mount, & Judge, 2001; Hogan &

Holland, 2003; Judge, et. al., 2002; Judge &
Ilies, 2002); Korman, 1968; George & Zhou,
2001; LePine, et al, 2000
Dunn,et al, 1995

Some authors show (Griffin, 2013, Komiski, 2006) that top and middle level managers play
different roles in organizations and formulate different requirements accordingly. The former
work more analytically, defining the organizational strategy, creating its developmental
vision, formulating its structure, while the second group work above all with people/teams,
steering them towards set targets and implementing specific changes in the organization.
In the study below we decided to test the differences between top managers (1) and middle
managers (2) with reference to three important variables within the traits approach: analytical
intelligence, emotional intelligence and personality. Each of the managers studied had worked
for at least three years in his or her position and had received good or very good appraisals for
their work.
In the research presented we tested three hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1. Top managers, owing to their work involving the analysis and processing of a
large quantity of information, will be distinguished by higher levels of analytical intelligence
in comparison with managers at lower levels.
Hypothesis 2. Top managers possess higher emotional intelligence scores at all levels in
comparison with managers at lower levels.
Hypothesis 3. Managers at all levels will display greater Plasticity and middle managers
greater Stability.
Materials and Methods
Participants
The group of participants consists of 233 managers. The first group include 78 top managers
(males) holding the positions of Chairman, Managing Director, Departmental Director,
Regional Director (age: M=34.90; SD=4.97) in organizations and the second include 155
middle-level mangers holding positions such as departmental or section manager, team leader
(age: M=35.98; SD=4.27), including 105 males. Each manager had worked at least three years

in his or her position and had received a good performance appraisal at work. The age of all
participants ranged from 27 to 54 years(M=35.26; SD=4.77). The managers were participating
in MBA studies and post-graduate managerial courses at Komiski University in Warsaw
Poland. They represented fields such as FMCG, the automotives, pharmaceuticals and IT.
Materials
Ravens Progressive Matrices. This scale is designed to measure general mental ability
(general intelligence). We used the standard progressive version to investigate the level of
analytical ability of managers. This is a popular tool of measurement for general mental
ability and its reliability and validity have been empirically proved in many studies.
Emotional Intelligence Questionnaire. This scale was developed by Jaworowska, Matczak,
(2005). The tool is based on the Salovey & Mayers approach of emotional intelligence
(1990) and consists of a scale of four theoretical concepts: 1) Acceptance, measured ability to
accept, express and use emotions in action, 2) Emotional Understanding the ability to
understand ones own emotions, 3) Control the ability to control ones own emotions, 4)
Empathy the ability to understand and recognize emotions in other people. Reliability
measured using Cronbachs alpha is good and is above .76 for all scales.
Circumplex of Personality Metatraits Portrait. In order to measure personality we used a
scale which investigates the personality dimension in the circumplex model. This is a reliable
tool (Cronbachs alpha for all scales is above .70) and has good construct validity.
According to the authors Strus, et al (2014), a metatrait can be understood as a personality
dimension which differentiates people in thinking, behaviour and emotions. The model
consists of eight measurements: 1) Stability signifies stable functioning in emotional,
motivational and social spheres, 2) Disinhibition indicates a tendency towards emotional
instability, low resistance to frustration, aggression and antagonism towards people and
governing rules, 3) Plasticity is linked to a tendency towards exploration of the environment,
cognitive and behavioural openness to change, engagement with new experiences, an
individual tendency to widen ones horizons, 4) Passiveness constitutes cognitive and
behavioural passivity, apathy and submissiveness, 5) Integration is a positive, pro-social
attitude to people, a balance between work and family, the successful realization of life goals,
Disharmony represents withdrawal from social and professional activity, a distrustful attitude,
distance from others, a tendency to view events and the world pessimistically, Self-Restraint
represents low emotionality, unwillingness to show emotions, strong control of ones
behaviour and conformism, Sensation-Seeking signifies impulsiveness, emotional lability,
sensation-seeking, a desire to dominate and expansiveness in interpersonal relations.

Results
The analysis was carried out in two steps: (1) the differences between the two groups was
tested (test t), (2) the variables were identified that most strongly differentiated both groups of
managers and which provided the basis for determining the likelihood of belonging to top

managers or middle managers (discriminant analysis). Because gender differentiated results in

personality (Costa and McCrae, 2005) as well as emotional intelligence (Jaworowska and
Matczak, 2005), the significance of the GENDER X MANAGER LEVEL interaction effect
was tested. All interaction effects were statistically insignificant for personality dimensions
(Wilks = .956; F(8,165)=0.939; p>0.05), emotional intelligence dimensions (Wilks = .994;
F(4,183)=.260; p>0.05), and general mental ability (F(1)=3.334; p>.05). There is no gender
impact on our differences testing.
First of all we checked whether differences exist between the two groups of managers in the
individual variable areas, i.e. general mental ability, emotional intelligence and personality.
Table 2 presents the results of test t for two independent samples.
Table 2 Differences in general mental ability, emotional intelligence and personality between
top and middle level of managers
Middle

Top

Test t

SD

SD

df

General mental ability

51.28

5.73

53.31

3.78

-3.156

209.08

0.002

Empathy

69.19

8.84

73.50

5.35

-4.181

184.76

<0.001

Control

34.71

8.68

30.32

6.43

3.999

187.27

<0.001

Acceptance

57.00

7.80

57.21

4.91

-0.222

186.26

0.824

Emotional Understanding 34.92

5.07

31.37

4.22

5.249

182.04

<0.001

Self-Restraint

25.28

5.09

25.92

5.36

-0.794

174

0.428

Stability

31.07

4.16

30.75

5.29

0.415

110.20

0.679

Integration

32.47

4.09

32.98

4.83

-0.755

174

0.451

Plasticity

31.49

5.00

32.52

4.84

-1.342

174

0.181

Sensation-Seeking

22.15

6.00

24.46

6.79

-2.346

174

0.020

Disinhibition

12.86

5.46

12.88

4.93

-0.026

174

0.980

Disharmony

12.48

4.76

13.23

5.56

-0.952

174

0.342

Passiveness

13.64

4.55

13.60

5.10

0.053

174

0.958

The results show that top managers display higher general mental ability, empathy and
sensation-seeking (delta -) while middle managers feature higher levels of control and
understanding.

In the discriminant analysis a set of variables was tested. In the discriminant analysis model,
the stepwise method was used. The adopted model is statistically significant - Wilks = .733;
2(3)=51.05; p<0.001; Rc=.517. The dimensions which most strongly differentiate the two
groups of managers are the emotional intelligence components. These are: Emotional control
(standardized discriminant coefficient = .53), Emotional Understanding (.66), and Empathy (.70). Based on these three components of IE, the function correctly assigned 75.3% of
participants (a posteriori) to the appropriate group of managers. The general mental ability
and personality dimensions are statistically insignificant.
Discussion
In terms of general mental ability, top managers obtained significantly higher scores
compared to middle managers. It is worth pointing out that the results of both come within the
high range of scores. General mental ability can be, to a limited extent, the criterion for
promotion to a higher management position. This particularly concerns those areas in an
organization in which they perform tasks requiring them to analyse, process and draw
conclusions from a large amount of data.
In the area of personality, significant differences were obtained between groups. Top
managers obtained higher Sensation-Seeking scores. Managers from this study group are
persons seeking stimulation; they are energetic and seek novelty. They are often less keen on
collaborating with others. The results support the thesis of Barrick and colleagues (2001) as
well as Judge et al. (2002), that managers are extravert, open to new experience, and at the
same time show that they are not submissive, but rather display impulsiveness, emotional
lability, are sensation-seeking, keen to dominate and expansive in interpersonal relations.
In the discriminant analysis emotional intelligence was the most differentiating factor in both
groups. Middle managers differ from top managers in the area of recognizing and controlling
emotions. Similar results were obtained by Barling and colleagues (2000), showing that
emotional intelligence is linked to a transactional type of leadership and particularly with socalled conditional rewards, perhaps because middle managers work strictly with people and
their results depend on the engagement and motivation of their teams. In the cited studies of
Palmer and colleagues (2001), we can see a relationship between the monitoring and
management of emotions with exerting influence through inspiration and individual treatment
of others, which supports the results we obtained. Our studies agree with the assumption of
the authors that two forms of emotional intelligence form the basic managerial competencies:
(1) the ability to recognize the emotions of oneself and others and (2) the ability to manage
emotions, but this applies to a greater extent to middle managers.
Top managers differ from middle managers in having a higher level of empathy, which
indicates a better understanding and recognition of others emotions as well as accurate
reading of their intentions. Thanks to these abilities a person is able to distinguish between
sincere and insincere expressions of feeling. High empathy scores indicate that a manager can
easily and accurately read intentions. It is possible that empathy represents an important basis
for building anticipatory or political competencies (Komiski, 2013) among top managers,
thus protecting them from threats through ably predicting changes in opinion, power games,

reading weak signals, and identifying their own chances and opportunities with other groups
in the organization.
In the above studies, two typical profiles have been identified for top and middle level
managers. They may be worthy of attention at times when, in the framework of organizational
development, selection profiles and development programmes for top and middle managers
are created.
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